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Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) for curvilinear fiber paths offers highly customizable composite structural designs by steering fibers along curvilinear paths. Tow steered composites develop gaps and overlaps due to the mismatch in curvatures in paths of adjacent tows that are decrease strengths and therefore considered defects. These defects increase with design complexity and design freedom allowed for tailoring he fiber orientation in each lamina. Practical design optimization of tow steered composite laminate structures require the inclusion of manufacturing constraints that can ensure manufacturability, reduce defects and ensure reasonable manufacturing times. This paper investigates methods to develop tow paths for given material orientation fields and quantify manufacturing constraints for use in a two level optimization of tow steered composites. In the two-level optimization strategy the material …